|
Post by gdwarf on Sept 3, 2005 9:26:55 GMT -4
Why do you always say this when you have no sensible reply? Why do you alwasy beg the question when you have no sensible reply?
|
|
|
Post by JayUtah on Sept 3, 2005 11:08:33 GMT -4
I think I have two corrections to the Clavius page. 1 - The Clavius equation for v_p is different from equation 1.16 on Bob's page. I think the numerator in the Clavius equation should use R_a.Yes, thanks. That's a typo. 2 - The Clavius calculations use 14x72 km which I think is a result of misconverting the 9x45 nautical miles orbit as miles.I recall Bob and I had a discussion a number of years ago when I wrote this page. We were each looking at different diagrams and tables for the ascent orbits, one of them giving altitude in nautical miles and another giving it in feet, and they didn't seem to be exactly the same distance. So it may be that I just used a difference source, or it may be that the conversion is wrong. Either way I'll double-check.
|
|
Bob B.
Bob the Excel Guru?
Posts: 3,072
|
Post by Bob B. on Sept 3, 2005 11:24:59 GMT -4
2 - The Clavius calculations use 14x72 km which I think is a result of misconverting the 9x45 nautical miles orbit as miles.I recall Bob and I had a discussion a number of years ago when I wrote this page. We were each looking at different diagrams and tables for the ascent orbits, one of them giving altitude in nautical miles and another giving it in feet, and they didn't seem to be exactly the same distance. So it may be that I just used a difference source, or it may be that the conversion is wrong. Either way I'll double-check. I am quite certain the 9 X 45 figure is measured in nautical miles. As ajv said, the actual perilune/apolune varied from mission to mission. Here are the initial ascent orbits from Apollo 14 through 17 before any tweaks or other subsequent maneuvers were performed. These figures are from the NASA mission reports and are given in nautical miles: Apollo 14 - 9.2 X 52.1 nm Apollo 15 - 9.0 X 42.5 nm Apollo 16 - 7.9 X 40.2 nm Apollo 17 - 9.1 X 48.5 nm
|
|
lenbrazil
Saturn
Now there's a man with an open mind - you can feel the breeze from here!
Posts: 1,045
|
Post by lenbrazil on Sept 3, 2005 13:45:01 GMT -4
Since the moon has one-sixth of Earth's gravity, Earth's gravity would not begin to assist the craft until it was over 40,000 miles away from the moon.
Look at the Command Module and compare it with the Saturn launcher.
Do you really think that this machine could have travelled 40,000 miles from moon orbit? |
margamatix I am no scientist the last time I studied this stuff was back in high school over 20 years ago. Jay, Bob, Rocket etc. tell me how I'm doing. At their closest the Earth and Moon are 225,622 miles from each other. I think you were trying to say was when the influence of the Earth's gravitational pull outweighed that of the Moon. If the Moon's gravity is 1/6 that of the Earth I as a complete layman would expect that to occur when the CM was 1/7th the distance between the 2 bodies [the distance to the Earth would be 6x that to the Moon]. That would occur 32,232 miles from the moon. I imagine this distance could have been reduced even more if they had timed the return to happen when the Sun was behind the Earth [relative to the Moon]. In any case as has been pointed out before, I trying to keep it in laymen's terms that the likes of you and me can clearly understand, it does not take a lot of energy to travel in atmosphereless and almost gravityless space. Of course if what you are saying is true and it was all a hoax and the CM was not large enough to carry enough fuel, wouldn't it have made sense for NASA to have used a larger CM? If it was all being faked why make a CM that was obviously too small? Your ideas seem to be derived mostly from BS. On his site it says the Apollo engineers were in the dark, each team working on isolated aspects of the project and only NASA's top dogs getting the complete picture. Even if we were to accept that premise and accept that the CM was to small to carry enough fuel to get it back to Earth and that this is so obvious that a truck driver with no technical background who has only casually studied the case can see it - how can we explain that none of the highly qualified engineers and physicists who spent years working of the CM were able to figure it out? How come no engineers or physicists support your ideas? Could that because they don't hold any water? We have yet to see your calculations as to how much fuel it would have taken. It seems you miscalculated the distance the CM would have to travel until the Earth's pull predominated over that of the Moon Try not to be true to form and cop out by not giving a reasonable reply.
|
|
lenbrazil
Saturn
Now there's a man with an open mind - you can feel the breeze from here!
Posts: 1,045
|
Post by lenbrazil on Sept 3, 2005 13:55:49 GMT -4
Funny that you say that since it was YOU that got us off on a tangent!! I think you have lost track of the thread here, which is "Will Bart Sibrel offer a refund to dissatisfied customers?" , and since I have already offered to underwrite his guarantee, I would suggest that the thread is effectively closed.
|
|
Bob B.
Bob the Excel Guru?
Posts: 3,072
|
Post by Bob B. on Sept 3, 2005 15:17:36 GMT -4
I am no scientist the last time I studied this stuff was back in high school over 20 years ago. Jay, Bob, Rocket etc. tell me how I'm doing. At their closest the Earth and Moon are 225,622 miles from each other. I think you were trying to say was when the influence of the Earth's gravitational pull outweighed that of the Moon. If the Moon's gravity is 1/6 that of the Earth I as a complete layman would expect that to occur when the CM was 1/7th the distance between the 2 bodies [the distance to the Earth would be 6x that to the Moon]. That would occur 32,232 miles from the moon. I imagine this distance could have been reduced even more if they had timed the return to happen when the Sun was behind the Earth [relative to the Moon]. In any case as has been pointed out before, I trying to keep it in laymen's terms that the likes of you and me can clearly understand, it does not take a lot of energy to travel in atmosphereless and almost gravityless space. Gravity is directly proportional to mass and inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the center of mass. We know Earth is 81 times more massive than the Moon and we know the average distance between the Earth and Moon is about 239,000 miles. If a spacecraft is a distance D from the Moon, than its distance from Earth is 239,000-D. At some value of D the force exerted by Earth is equal to that exerted by the Moon. This occurs when, 81/(239,000-D)^2 = 1/D^2 Solving for D we obtain D=23,900 miles, or 1/10th the distance from the Moon to the Earth. Of course if what you are saying is true and it was all a hoax and the CM was not large enough to carry enough fuel, wouldn't it have made sense for NASA to have used a larger CM? If it was all being faked why make a CM that was obviously too small? This is one of the things I’ve always found most absurd about claims like this. How friggin’ stupid do these people think NASA is? Anyone of thousands of people familiar with rocketry can verify the numbers. If NASA were faking it they would have at least produced a design that works on paper. If I was trying to hoax people into believing I sailed across the Atlantic, I sure wouldn’t be stupid enough to show them a picture of a canoe say this is what I did it in. The SPS was capable of producing the delta-V needed for LOI, TEI, and the other maneuvers required of it. I have verified it to myself mathematically. I have yet to see any conspiracy theorist produce a single calculation demonstrating otherwise. All we get from Sibrel and his ilk is handwaving. By the way, the CM was just the crew capsule and carried propellant only for its reentry RCS. It was the SM that housed the SPS and propellant for the major propulsive maneuvers such as LOI and TEI.
|
|
|
Post by rocketdad on Sept 3, 2005 15:25:11 GMT -4
Thor Hyerdhal (sp?) sailed across the Pacific in a little boat made of straw, just to prove it could be done. He started the journey to prove that the Easter Island long-ears and the Peruvian long-ears might have been related. See, he took a theory, and applied reality to it to verify the theory that it was POSSIBLE, not that it was so. In the end he decided the trip would have been a lot easier in the other direction.
I don't think NASA hired truck drivers and tv camera operators to design the Apollo program, but that doesn't mean that it couldn't be done. There just would have been less TLA's (three letter acronyms) at the end.
|
|
|
Post by JayUtah on Sept 3, 2005 15:44:53 GMT -4
Jay, Bob, Rocket etc. tell me how I'm doing.
Pretty good.
A simultaneous solution for distance of the basic gravity formula can give you a first-order approximation for a crossover point.
But remember that you're plotting the course of a moving object, and in reality an orbiting object. Orbital mechanics is the science of pitting gravity against velocity. So you can't leave out velocity.
We have a practical method for designing this type of transfer orbit. The "patched-conic" method takes into account that orbits are conic sections, and therefore have closed-form mathematical properties at each point along them. To "patch" together two conic sections means to select a common point between them that shares the appropriate mathematical quantities -- that is, second- or third-order geometrical continuity and orbital velocity.
A number of such points can exist, depending on the orbits around Earth and moon selected.
So you'd think that would do just peachy, but unfortunately the moon's motion along its own orbit is significant in the domain of Earth-moon navigation. So the patched-conic approach gives you a starting point. You continue using the "restricted three-body problem" to integrate a numerical solution that is the precise physical manifestation of the patched-conic theoretical approach.
On his [Bart Sibrel's] site it says the Apollo engineers were in the dark, each team working on isolated aspects of the project and only NASA's top dogs getting the complete picture.
Bart Sibrel has never been within 10 miles of an aerospace engineering project. He's not telling you the way Apollo engineers worked -- he's telling you the way he needs them to have worked in order for his theory to be true. We have ample evidence of collaboration and cross-training in Apollo engineering. Sibrel seems to forget that there are still thousands of engineers working in the world today who worked on Apollo. He can't just plausibly fabricate a new mode of work and pretend it was really what happened.
In short, Sibrel is way off in fantasy-land.
|
|
lenbrazil
Saturn
Now there's a man with an open mind - you can feel the breeze from here!
Posts: 1,045
|
Post by lenbrazil on Sept 3, 2005 16:34:39 GMT -4
Would this have made a diference?
I imagine this distance could have been reduced even more if they had timed the return to happen when the Sun was behind the Earth [relative to the Moon]
|
|
lenbrazil
Saturn
Now there's a man with an open mind - you can feel the breeze from here!
Posts: 1,045
|
Post by lenbrazil on Sept 3, 2005 16:38:32 GMT -4
In short, Sibrel is way off in fantasy-land.
Why not in Shameless Liarland. Jack White, James Fetzer among other CT's hangout there too!
|
|
|
Post by Mr Gorsky on Sept 3, 2005 18:19:28 GMT -4
Sorry to backtrack a little, but one of my favourite Apollo hoax believer idiocies has reared its head again.
Margamatix (along with others) has looked at the LM/CSM and concluded that they don't look like they could possibly do what NASA claim they did. This is a completely and utterly ridiculous argument that deflates their balloon before it has even lifted off.
* If NASA wanted to put together a faked moon landing that would convince the public across the world, it would have designed fake spacecraft that the layman would look at and instinctively accept could have landed on the moon.
* If NASA wanted to put together a faked moon landing that would convince the scientific community across the world, then it would have designed fake spacecraft that matched up to the scientist's expectations of lunar craft and confirmed to the specifications required following all the appropriate calculations.
There is no point in NASA proceeding on the basis of proposition 1, since the scientific community would immediately cry foul and a hoax on this basis would (IMO) quickly turn to dust.
So ...
If NASA wanted to make a hoax that fooled the scientific community that they really went to the moon (which they would have to if the hoax was to last more than 5 minutes), then they would have to design fake spacecraft that look much like the Apollo craft.
This being the case, any hoax argument based on the fact that a layman doesn't consider the Apollo craft capable of accomplishing a lunar landing mission is clearly hogwash (to quote JayUtah)..
|
|
|
Post by rocketdad on Sept 3, 2005 21:46:52 GMT -4
The notion of non-engineers judging an engineered object for task-worthyness is pretty strange.
None of us, for instance, would consider an ordinary riding lawnmower a good choice for driving cross-country, but the first automobile to cross the US was a chain-drive two seat gizmo of less than 15 horsepower. Common sense and gut reactions are poor judges of most things.
Frankly, the human race has proven again and again that as soon as people can cobble together a leaky boat to go somewhere new, they WILL whether the boat itself is really the best design for the job or not. Homo erectus didn't wait until they had the ultimate tent before wandering all the way to Java. They just went.
|
|
|
Post by jones on Sept 3, 2005 22:54:46 GMT -4
"And could have met it and coupled with it without incident, despite the completely untried nature of such a manoeuvre?" Maybe you should do some research on the Gemini program. Let me make it easy for you... www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/kscpao/history/gemini/gemini-overview.htmThe Gemini program was just gearing up to put a man on the moon. They had to do some homework first on things like rendezvous and docking..
|
|
|
Post by JayUtah on Sept 3, 2005 23:15:10 GMT -4
Let us not forget that the lunar module pilot on Apollo 11 was Doctor Edwin Aldrin, Jr. (MIT), one of the world's foremost experts on practical orbital rendezvous. He demonstrated his expertise on his Gemini flight.
|
|
Bob B.
Bob the Excel Guru?
Posts: 3,072
|
Post by Bob B. on Sept 4, 2005 0:06:13 GMT -4
Look at the Command Module and compare it with the Saturn launcher. Do you really think that this machine could have travelled 40,000 miles from moon orbit? Margamatix, A new thread has been started to discuss the CM/SM issue. You can read it here. I didn’t want you to miss it.
|
|